In Low Places
by Sonic Serendipity
Summary: so these two honest men walk into a prison cell
1. Chapter 1

Three weeks into his all-expenses-paid vacation in sunny prison, Nate is told to gather his (meager) belongings for a move to a new cell. Finding things out for himself is much more efficient than asking questions, so he wordlessly pulls together what little there is and nods a civil farewell to his cell mate. "Crowbar."

Crowbar, so nicknamed for the object that was the cause of his current incarceration, waved a little with his giant hairy hand. "Nate. See you at lunch. Don't get shanked, I don't want Spencer to kill me."

"You got it."

His new cell had a new cell mate, moving his own belongings in with the kind of stiff movements that telegraphed someone more used to a suit than a jumpsuit. The reason why soon became clear, when the other inmate looked up and his brown eyes widened impressively. "Nathan Ford?"

"Agent. Are you undercover?"

"If only," Peter Burke said ruefully. "What about you? I haven't seen you since you were working on the same Caffrey case as us back in '04." His eyes narrowed, that shrewd look the same despite the change in attire. "I have heard some interesting rumors about you, recently…."

"I think I'm flattered," Nate said with amusement, dropping his bundle on the unoccupied bed. "To think that an agent of the FBI would listen to rumors of an insurance guy he didn't meet more than once."

Burke's mouth tilted puckishly at the corners. "You kidding? I think every guy in white collar was a card-carrying member of the Nate Ford fanclub."

"Even you?"

"Oh, yeah." His grin widened crookedly. "Attended the meetings and everything."

Nate smiled despite himself, sitting in the bed slowly, still cautious of his healed side. "What exactly goes on at a meeting of my fanclub?"

"Well, it depends on the chapter. My group, we mostly knitted sweaters as we sighed about how dreamy your investigative prowess was."

"Oh, well, yeah…" Nate gave up and laughed, feeling inexplicably cheered. Eliot's contacts had been a welcome source of safety in the con-eat-con world of prison, but he still occasionally thought of himself as an honest man and it had been a genuine pleasure to work with a fed as good and sharp as Burke. Which begged the question…. "Hey, how the hell did you get yourself put in maximum security?"

Burke slanted him a sideways look. "I could ask you the same."

"I asked first," Nate pointed out cheerfully.

"Fair enough." Burke scratched at the collar of his jumpsuit, looking nothing so much as embarrassed. "Well…it's kind of a long story. I've been working with Caffrey as my CI for several years now…" he looked up to see if his cellmate was following.

"Yeah, I heard about that. Pretty damn impressive, turning a guy like that into a Fed."

"Leaving aside the fact that he's not really a Fed…and how the hell you know that…" he peered at him again, but was met with an undimmed look. "It's pretty much all Neal's fault. But…I, uh…" He pursed his mouth, looking still more uncomfortable. "There have been a few times, recently, when I might possibly have obeyed the spirit of the law more than the letter."

"_Real_ly." Nate felt his smile change, into what Sophie called 'the cat that ate the canary', Hardison called 'Joker-esque', Eliot called 'shark', and Parker called 'that thing with your face that means we get to do something fun'. "Agent Burke, I look forward to our discussions."


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: for my hc_bingo square 'imprisonment'. It's fairly pointless but I want ALL THE NATE AND PETER. All of it.

* * *

_iii iii iiii iii_

_iii iii iii_

It took about a month to realize that Burke was really not handling imprisonment half as well as Nate.

Physically, he was fine; he didn't have a healing bullet would, to start with, and Eliot's contacts tended to hover obtrusively in the vicinity when there started to be grumbling about the Fed. But mentally…well. He was in some ways very similar to Nate—law-abiding enough to accept that his sentence was justified, but not so rule-bound that he actually regretted having done what he saw as necessary to help people. The main difference was that Nate had, more or less, volunteered for his current situation. Burke not so much.

They talked a little, throughout the dull days, but Burke tended to keep to himself and neither of them were particularly voluble. Nate only realized that something more than the usual honest man blues was amiss when his cellmate was gone for an hour to have a visitor and came back looking visibly agitated. Nate looked at him curiously over his law book. "Unpleasant visitor?"

Burke snorted, pacing the tiny floorspace with stiff-legged annoyance. "On the contrary, it was my wife." He stopped at the cell door, fists planted on his hips and mouth locked tightly. "The first time I was actually able to be in the room without a glass between us. Only the second time I've seen her since I got in here."

"Wait, come again?" Nate discarded the book and sat up straight. "Only twice in almost a month? I know this is max, but you're a white-collar convict, at most, and she's your wife. Only twice?"

"You don't have to tell me!" He spun around and dropped into his own cot, hands tracing angry paths in the air. "I know we've kicked over some anthills lately, but who in the hell…."

"Sounds like you've made some enemies in high places."

Burke gave him an unimpressed look. "You sound like that pleases you."

"Well, no, not as such…" he ran his hand over the book cover, absently fingering the frayed edges of the binding. "But you know what they say about judging a man by his enemies." He grinned, then grew serious again. "Sorry. Good news about that is, that kind of stall is limited. And you've got lots of contacts on both sides of the fence who would be willing to look deeper…."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Burke said. He held up a postcard-sized object, passing it over when Nate squinted at it. "I can't trust them to stay out of trouble."

Nate looked over the object; it was a canvas-board, painted with detailed and delicate brushwork; at first glance it seemed to be a reproduction of the Mona Lisa, but the model was clearly different, a woman with a modern hairstyle and clever blue eyes. "In the style of da Vinci. The model's beautiful."

Burke smiled at that, pride bright in his eyes as he took the painting back. "El, Elizabeth. My wife."

"Lucky man," Nate said honestly. He nodded to the painting. "Why is that trouble?"

"I'm gone for one month, and what is Neal doing? He's proving to anyone who looks that he can forge a da Vinci. Hell, he probably HAS forged at least one in the past."

"Ahhh. I see."

"Yeah, I bet you do." Burke smirked at him. "You've got a whole team of thieves and conmen, right? How come they haven't broken you out yet?"

"I'd protest about those allegations, except for the fact that you're in jail same as me," Nate said.

Burke sighed, levity fading as quickly as it'd come. "Yeeeeeah. So very much in jail."

Nate looked at him for a moment, debating, before jerking his head towards the floor. "Come on. Sit down and play chess with me."

"What are the stakes?"

Nate pulled out the chess set, a cheap plastic thing, and set it down with a challenging look. "A story per piece. Bigger pieces for bigger felonies."

* * *

_iii iii iiii iii_

_iii iii iii_

"The Wire in an hour? Are you serious?"

* * *

_iii iii iiii iii_

_iii iii iii_

"You guys switched roles? For the whole case? Oh, there are a lot of guys who would have paid good money to see that."

"Oh, shut up, Nate."

"After you, Peter."


End file.
